Here's the official video for the George Michael Christmas song that charted yesterday. Nice!

Most of you probably know the Jackson 5 Christmas LP from 1970 (with its definitive versions of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, "Up On the House Top" and so on).

Personally, however, I believe Michael Jackson's singing voice was never better than in the period 1972-73. This is when he mastered the art of expressing a broken heart. And fortunately for us, at the end of '73 he gave us a Christmas song on a heartbreak theme. Beautiful writing - quite complex for a pop song actually, probably aimed at the AOR audience that was lapping up Elton and Stevie Wonder at the time. Great vocal harmony support too from (I assume) the rest of the J5.



The video is a fan-made one from this year: plays up the more schmaltzy aspects of the song a bit too much but, still, it's not bad.

We were going to save this one for a bit, but impatient Mr rechabite posted it in a comments thread yesterday (Watch out Lena: he probably knows in which wardrobe you've stashed his Christmas presents too!). So here is Bob "Bobby" Dylan's brilliant version of 'Must be Santa'.



This sure beats Tommy Steele's version (although I do have a soft spot for that one, kids' chorus notwithstanding). Listen out particularly for the bit where Bob lists the names of Santa's reindeer!